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Art of Primitive Sound - Musical Instruments From Prehistory - The Paleolithic

by: Hic Sunt Leones

Publication date: 1993-01-01

Topics: music, aboriginal, prehistory, paleolithic

The first track is "La Danza Delle Foglie" , a convincingly primitive ritualistic piece - dramatic and disturbing. It's not the various percussive sounds which meander around in primordial Jazz sprawls which disturb, but the sounds which rustle like a medicine man dressed in silver foil feathers which seems to add darkness. It forms into a dance piece for a few moments, then decays again into fantasy. "Flauti" uses a breathy flute in impressive trills only touching briefly on anything like a tune, creating instead a chill sense of mystery, a suggestion of bloody survivalism in it's apparently benign sounds. It willows like splayed bird feathers of wind sound, almost colorless displays of assumed plumage. "Osso D'Aquila Per La Danza Degli Spettri" uses a thinner, whistle sound & wooden-block percussion to create a brief, strange sketch. "Rombi Volanti" uses what I can only assume is a 'swung' wind instrument - the tones rise as the modulation speeds, a little like using pulled magnetic tape. I'd imagine the instrument to be a bolus-like thing. And with it they create a chill atmosphere of mystery with sudden surges of sound leaping out of the near silence as if on a mission. "II Corno, La Tartaruga. L'arco E La Selce" uses scraped, scratching sounds, a little like a plastic comb, along with another, alncst percussive instrument to create a more modern primative song, emulating echoes. This becomes a danceable piece using many none-too-easily-identifiable sounds as source, including a watery sound which is not, yet could almost be, a digital sample. "Le Pietre Sonore Della Caverna" has a Caribbean sound to it - not a modern, welcoming melodic wistful song of steel drums, but a darker, more malign forerunner. The music is a warning to the wary, in the way that bright stripes in nature suggests 'hands off'. "Le Pietre Del Fiume" is perhaps even note primative - a lot of stony, bony knocking forged into a composition which suggests bones clicking together while skulls are forced open to reach the soft matter within. The sounds echo into dark recesses of the Home-Cave. "I Semi Vegatali: Voci Della Jungla" uses a similar watery clicking, the shuffling, scuttling sounds of bead rattles moving in disquieting composition with birdcall, whistles & apparent ambient sounds. "Lo Spirito Della Palude" uses a shuffled backdrop, as of rustled paper or plastic sheeting with dripping percussion & oddly truncated flute sounds adding oddly nervous, disturbed sounds. This suddenly changes into something more composed & Westernized, despite the Ethnic, almost alien sounds of the instruments, This must be the most accessible piece here, yet still makes the hairs rise from your skin as if in surrender. Didgeridoo joins flute, drums, pipes, whistles, rattles & ambient, animal sounds, This would have pleased early PSYCHIC TV - my even have made them envious! The next piece "Ii Linguaggio Del Mare", seems to use shards of broken glass to form a dangerous, blade-like backdrop. Over this is a broken trumpet-like sound - Tibetan? The sounds like small skulls being broken in & larger ones forced open comes again, with human noises rising. "Reperti Amazzonici" closes the album with whizzing, breathy sounds which 'zoom' like some non-human child playing with toy cars. This is succeeded by a jingling sound like someone shaking wind-chimes, or threatening the listener with chains. Other pieces, presumably of the same track, join in, jingling, shaking, shuffling, as if the Witch Doctor were trying out several rattles until he hits on the right combination,

This isn't modern music using primitive instruments, nor is it cop-out sampling, but a representation of what many of us would regard as 'primative music' created by (I assume) recreations of primative instruments. That it seems so disturbing speaks volumes about our general attitude to less formed musics, An interesting, and disturbing album. With it comes a booklet mentioning & describing the various instruments used which makes fascinating reading, adding extra dimension & helps the listener understand the album.

1	The Dance Of Leaves	4:09
2	Flautes	4:30
2a	Aerial Harmonics
2b	Curved Melodies
2c	In Flight
3	Eagle Bone For The Ghost Dance	1:25
4	Flying Rhombs	4:57
4a	Horn (Africa)
4b	Bamboo (Nias)
4c	Wood (India)
4d	Wood (Australia)
5	The Horn, The Tortoise, The Bow, The Flintstone	3:44
6	Sonorous Stones In The Cave	6:08
6a	Stactite Gong
6b	The "Organ"
7	River Stones	1:49
8	Vegetable Seeds: Jungle Voices	5:11
9	The Spirit Of The Marshed	5:17
10	Sea Language, Shells	5:36
11	Amazonian Finds	4:38
11a	River Shells
11b	Tucan Beaks
11c	Coleopter Eleters

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